Who sits where at New York fashion week can be tricky business

Models showcased the Fall 2014 BCBG Max Azria collection at the opening of Fashion Week in New York on Thursday.

Published: 08 February 2014 05:30 PM

Updated: 08 February 2014 07:16 PM

If New York Fashion Week is the Super Bowl of style, then the process of picking who gets in — and who sits where — is like a secret playbook.

Sometimes it can be a feat for media, retail buyers, celebrities and fashion fans just to get their names on the guest list. Scoring a seat instead of a standing space is even better.

For many designers and public relations firms, it’s a hush-hush practice that is largely veiled from the public. A handful of brands contacted for this story declined to comment on how their Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week guests are selected and seated.

This year’s event started last Thursday and winds up next Thursday with runway shows and presentations concentrated at tents outside Lincoln Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Some of the makeshift venues will have fewer seats this year, making access even more limited. More generous seating and media passes in recent seasons led some designers to lament that the atmosphere at the tents had grown too pedestrian.

“The redesigned venue offerings will enable designers to better control and reduce audience capacities, making invitations once again an exclusive pass for true fashion insiders,” said a statement from fashion shows producer IMG Fashion.

More than 100 seats have been cut from Lepore’s runway show Wednesday at Lincoln Center, Hagan said.

Some people pull out all the stops to try to make an impression.

“People come up with these crazy sob stories. You kind of hear it all,” said Erin Hawker, owner and founder of Agentry PR.

“The [requests] that are successful are the ones that are short, honest and express a genuine admiration for the brand,” Hagan said.

Social media, celebrities and reality TV shows, such as Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model, have elevated pop culture’s interest in runway shows as entertainment. But in the end, the shows are about boosting business for a brand.

A guest list should consist of those who are “appropriate and relevant to the brand to get the best exposure and publicity … and hopefully lots of orders from stores,” New York-based designer Betsey Johnson said in an email.

She will present her collection inspired by American Hustle and Rihanna on Wednesday at Lincoln Center.

Many brands start working on their lists months in advance.

Lepore works with a third-party agency that helps compile a list of potential guests. For bloggers, the staff members research their websites’ reach, visual design, quality of work and presence on social media.

“What we started to do this year is put less of a focus on numbers and more of a focus on aesthetic,” Hagan said.

If one person is an editor in chief of a startup blog with little readership and another is a writer for a major fashion website, the writer will take precedence over the editor, he says.

The front row is for VIP guests and top media outlets. If a couple of people from the same prominent publication attend, those who are reviewing the show will typically get the closer seat so they can see the show better, even if they don’t necessarily have the more prestigious title, Hawker said.

It’s not uncommon for 200 or 300 people to show up at the door the day of the show and say they’re friends of the designer or personally invited, Hawker said.

“We save the standing-room area for the people who show up at the door.”

And then there are the celebrities. Every Fashion Week there are stories of brands that dish out large sums of money to get attendance from A-list actresses or even one-hit-wonder reality personalities to create a buzz.

But many brands frown upon this behavior, reserving their seats for their strongest supporters.

“Our relationships are organic. We don’t pay people to sit in the front row,” Hagan said. “We have to show people what we can give them, and what we can give them is our genuine admiration of their work by going to bat for them and giving them a seat.”

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